Is Foreman Frazier the greatest win of all time?

He was, but how often do two great fighters meet at their absolute peaks?

 

Was about to vigorously shoot it down, then I saw the rationale you and reznick had. Thought provoking. In that way, sheer domination of an ATG who was viewed at the peak of his powers, it might be the greatest HW win of all time. Liston Patterson is the only one that comes to mind as rivaling it in that respect, but Liston was only slightly more dominant than Foreman in the fight, and also neither was as good an ATG as Foreman Frazier.

 

Tyson Spinks has to be up there.

And maybe by the end of the year, we could add Kovalev Ward to the list?

Depending on how the fight pans out.

 

I'd agree that Joe was past his best - at the very least on the night. That's the story of most of these fights, though. Willard was past his best and not that good to begin with, Duran and Dempsey were past their best vs Tunney and Hearns, Ali was past his best vs Frazier.

Tyson and Foreman probably wasn't at their best on the night vs Douglas and Young. Neither did McCallum seem to be vs Kalambay. It's also a fair argument that Leonard had a bit of an off-night vs Duran (and that was a close, hard-fought affair). Some say the same for Benitez vs Leonard and Foreman vs Ali, as well. And Louis vs Schmeling. But all these guys were in their primes, though. Pea vs Chavez?

I think you can make a fair argument for most of the above.

 

You won't hear me say that "FOTC Frazier" would beat Foreman that night. But he did seem like he lost a step post FOTC.

 

Not for me. There's a small handful of best ever victories imo.

Fitzsimmons vs Corbett
Armstrong vs Ross
Leonard vs Hagler

Those are my top 3. Then there's a whole host of next best category like Duran v Leonard, Ali v Foreman, Langford v Flowers.

Foreman v Frazier is the next category down imo.

 

Great picks. As mentioned this was just off the top of my head and others can certainly add to it.

 

In regards to scoring a brutalizing knockout of an undefeated king of the hill, yes, nothing beats this. Tyson over Spinks, Liston over Patterson and Hearns over Duran follow in that order. Can't think of any other quick destructions between the best champion and challenger at the moment.

Foreman KO2 Frazier isn't the "greatest" win in history but it's up there. One of the best but not the greatest.

Frazier UD 15 Ali
Schmeling KO 13 Louis
Ali KO 8 Foreman
Foreman KO 2 Frazier
Louis KO 1 Schmeling
Douglas KO 10 Tyson
Bowe UD 12 Holyfield
Holyfield MD 12 Bowe
Ali KO 14 Frazier
Tyson KO 1 Spinks
Liston KO 1 Patterson

These are the greatest heavyweight victories.

 

Frazier over Ali was better IMO

 

A very strong case for best at heavyweight I would say.

 

Where is Rahman's knockout of Lewis on that list?

 

Well, not much in real life, but that's what this forum is all about,...where we can engineer this matter of primes.

 

He was the HW champion. Tyson had to beat him to take his crown.